In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, the President of Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA), Aminu Umar speaks on the challenges facing the implementation of the Cabotage waiver clause by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). He also speaks on other sundry industry issues.
“Nigerians do not have the required training to man the technologically-advanced vessels operating in the waters of this world”
“Indigenous ship owners don’t engage foreigners, we only employ Nigerians”
What’s your view on the Cabotage waiver cessation implementation, do you think Nigeria is ready for the implementation?
Well, I think this is an interesting and challenging question. The answer is no, but are we ready in the next few years; the answer is yes and no. But first, we have to look at what waivers are in the Cabotage Act. There are three important waivers that they put there and one of it is the ownership of vessel, the vessel must be owned by Nigerian. This, we can 100 per cent say we can meet, because we have a lot of Nigerians that own vessels.
The second important waiver in the Cabotage Act is that the vessel must be built in Nigeria. We have to be honest to ourselves, only boat can be built in Nigeria today or maybe in the next five to 10 years. There is no way these vessels that we operate can be built in the next 10 years here, because we do not have the facilities. We do not have the steel industry, we do not have the technology yet, and even the yard that this vessel will be built in and it would take some years for you to build those kind of yards.
Then, we then talk about the waiver which is the manning of the vessels, they must be manned by Nigerians. You will ask me again; can we man the vessels today? The answer is No. Can we man it in the next five years, the answer is No, I do not think we have the capacity and the manpower or the training; we do not have the required training to man the technologically advanced vessels operating in the waters of this world.
I think the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has to look at a systemic way of implementing the Cabotage waiver. They should prioritize the waivers and the major consideration should be given to ownership, because the main purpose for that Act is to support ownership, when you have the ownership, the rest of them will fall in place.
And these is what we as the ship owners are asking for, first let them stop the whole waiver except the vessels is owned by Nigerians. However, you have already known that manning cannot be done one hundred percent, so you allow us to continue, but emphasis should be that the vessel must be registered in Nigeria and owned by Nigerians. It is by then we can say we are ready for the waiver. This is why I say the answer is yes and no.
How do you think government can enhance the employability of the Nigerian Seafarers?
First, the government has to create the market, a supportive market. What do I mean by supportive market? The government should only allow Nigerian owned vessels to operate within Nigeria coast. The moment that is done, Nigerians would be employed. Today in Nigeria waters, there are foreign ship owners who do not employ any Nigerian, but are being allowed to do the business at lower cost than the Nigerian ship owner. And because they have lower cost, they have the ability to undercut some price of the vessel and when they under cut on price, there is no way a Nigerian can be able to survive in that business and these have been the problem.
There have also been allegations that indigenous ship owners discriminate against Nigerian seafarers, how true is this?
I do not know why people carry that impression, because we the indigenous ship owners don’t engage foreigners, we only employ Nigerians. If we have Nigerians as employees; a ship owner who is a business man only looks at his profit and loss. It is more profitable for him to employ Nigerians at lower costs because they do not need visa and international flight, medical insurance from their country for them to come and work on the ship. So, I don't think the impression that people have about Nigerian ship owners not wanting to employ Nigerian seafarers is right.
There was a time Philippine government stopped seafarers from working in Nigerian waters due to insecurity. Has anything changed?
That restriction still exists and India has followed suit. The issue is that they don't want to have their nationals working for any reason within Nigerian waters. For instance, two months ago, there was hijack and kidnapping of Indian nationals. Based on that, they are of the opinion that none of their seafarers should come to Nigeria again and work on the ship. As far as their government is concerned, no Indians are allowed to come to Nigeria. Unfortunately, this is what we are facing. I believe Nigeria government should engage the two maritime administration of these two countries for discussion on the restrictions. They should engage them to allay their fears because we need these people to transfer their knowledge and capacity to Nigerians to run the ships. You can see that the cadets of the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) of NIMASA were being sent to Philippines and India for training.
Do you have any programme in connection with the Maritime Academy of Nigeria on training of cadets onboard vessels?
Yes, we are already doing that. The companies under Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) are taking students from Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron. They take students that come from the NSDP programme. I can tell you in my company I have so many of them, we are among the first or only company that has taken girls who are seafarers and we put them on board and we give them this full time training. So, we already undergoing this and we have many of our Nigerian seafarers that have been promoted from cadetship, some of them go back to school and come back and join us again, and we continue promoting them based on their experience and expertise and on merit. Some of them have even reached the level of officers and it is very important and we are very happy that we are among the companies that have taken them to this level.
What's your assessment of the US$195m maritime security contract?
To be honest, I don't know much about that $195 million security contract. Like you said, they have not mobilised yet, but, I believe that when they commence, the impact will be a positive one on security of vessels. But, we have to agree that to an extent there is a little bit of reduction in the attacks. We can see that the attacks are now localised in the areas of Brass and Bonny. We expect NIMASA which is our regulatory body to engage the Nigeria Navy to see how they can make them control that area where the attack is happening consistently. Today, you cannot imagine the kind of cost the issue of security is causing our entire shipping industry. We are paying a lots of money on war insurance because they consider Nigeria from Lagos to Calabar as war risk zone, they are considered far more dangerous than Syria. Shipowners have to engage private security for escorts. Shipowners are paying a lot of money in fact, more than 30 per cent of our freight earnings is going into security.
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